


the things we say to others

by applecrumbledore



Category: Berserk
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Compliant, M/M, no non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 14:25:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12110673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecrumbledore/pseuds/applecrumbledore
Summary: “So you were lovers,” Serpico said. He imagined how Guts might cut him in half for asking—if he'd use one of his smaller knives and take his time, or insist on using his sword and hack up half the room.Guts finally looked away. “Does it matter?”





	the things we say to others

**Author's Note:**

> mostly takes place around chapter 249, when they're in the city and schierke meets sonia. no massive spoilers, but still, ch 249. just a wildly self indulgent exercise.

 

Mule felt that Griffith tolerated his presence more than he enjoyed it, but it was a gesture he appreciated regardless. On clear nights after a battle, when Sonia was otherwise occupied and Charlotte had gone to sleep, Griffith would let Mule sit with him far from the din of camp, and on most nights, they didn't say much at all. Mule felt smarter and calmer just being near him, as if he could soak in his presence. But that night in particular, Mule was restless. Griffith sat a few paces away on an overturned log and looked out over the glowing lights of their camp below. Mule sat further back and looked at Griffith.

Things had been different lately. Mule didn't know Griffith well (he wasn't sure that anyone did) but something about the privacy they shared then made him brazen.

He asked, “Do you love Princess Charlotte?”

Griffith turned around to face him and fixed him with a bemused smile.

“What makes you ask me such a thing?”

“I just—I don't know.”

Mule wanted to say that Griffith’s attention seemed like an obvious political move to everyone but Charlotte, despite the sorry state of Midland. He wanted to say that there was no one who knew Griffith who thought he was interested in women. Griffith waved his hand.

“Don't worry about that. Charlotte is a wonderful girl.”

_That wasn't what I was asking_.

“Have you—not to be insubordinate, but—have you ever loved anyone, sir?”

Griffith’s eyes were light enough that one could see his pupils clearly, and when they shuttered to pinpricks it was sharp and obvious and startling. Mule sat back.

“I'm sorry,” he said, and opened his mouth to say more, but nothing came out. After a moment, Griffith softened back to normal.

“It's fine. I'm… I’m not that… Love doesn't…” He aborted both his sentences and tucked his hair behind his ear. “Why are you asking?”

Mule told the truth before he thought better of it. “I want to know more about you.”

Griffith seemed amused by this.

"Why?”

He said it like everyone in the band hadn't joined because they were fascinated by him, or else because they stood in awe and fear of him. Like he genuinely thought he was nobody. Mule couldn't speak to that and he said nothing. Griffith tipped his head to the side.

“There were people I loved,” Griffith said. “I have loved.”

He didn't mention Charlotte. Mule still refused to speak, overwhelmed with adrenaline his earlier forwardness; he felt like a child.

Griffith went on to say, “When I was a boy,” speaking slowly, as if one end of each word stayed attached to his lips, “I loved someone. Unexpectedly. My raiding commander. I must have been... seventeen, eighteen.”

Mule held his breath. A man? A woman? He remembered hearing of a commander who was a woman, one of the many, many components of Griffith’s past that no one talked about openly. Griffith went on.

“If I were talking to anyone else right now, I might have lied and said I loved him as a brother, but that implies reciprocity. The truth is that I was desperately in love with him.”

A man. Mule couldn't have said anything if he wanted to. Griffith stared into nothing and Mule didn't dare interrupt him as he spoke.

“I think he drove me mad, for a while. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. If I could, I would have cracked him in two just to climb inside him and be closer to him. I can’t explain it. I was a child with an obsession.”

“You were hardly a child, sir. What you had accomplished by such a young age was—”

“Not like that,” Griffith scoffed. “Inside, I was a child. He was, too. Because of that, I just … I just _wanted_ him. In every way someone could want a thing. I wanted to possess him. I would have given anything to—to—”

Griffith bowed his head and his hair hid his face. When he looked up, he seemed fine again.

“What was so special about him?” Mule asked. Griffith didn’t speak for a long time.

“I don’t know if I remember anymore. Isn’t that sad? He was strong. Smart in most ways that mattered. Nearly silent. And he … he wanted nothing. He was never needy, and always in control. Even when he wasn’t. He was absolute.” He sighed. “I swore he was seven feet tall. A short, deep scar over his nose. Oily black hair. A bit neanderthal, in a very charming way.”

Mule had never seen him so wistful. It wasn't an emotion he thought Griffith was capable of—although he was kind, he was also immeasurably cold. Untouchable. To see him speak of anyone the way he spoke then was haunting.

“He may have loved me back,” Griffith said, “I don't know. Not that it makes a difference now.”

Mule knew he was pushing his luck asking so many questions, but he couldn't help himself. He orbited Griffith in a permanent state of fascination.

“You—you don't _know_ , sir?”

Griffith shook his head lightly.

“Not in the slightest. He was… like that. I think he felt affection for me, and obviously some amount of lust, or else natural boyhood curiosity. But I think I easily could have been anyone to him.”

“I don't believe that for a second.”

“You never met him. Just swinging his sword. Looking for a home. I used to think…” He looked off into the dark and Mule was at the wrong angle to see his face.

“I’m sorry to pry.”

“No, no,” Griffith said. He was still obviously absent. Mule expected him to continue, but he didn't, no _it's fine_ or _it's nice to get it off my chest_ , because it probably wasn't either.

“He lost an eye,” Griffith said, distantly. “He kept it shut, last time I saw him, but I believe the eye was gone. If he opened it, it would be an empty socket.”

“Oh.”

“And an arm. He was missing his left arm below the elbow.”

“ _Oh._ ”

“Before that, though—he had a power I’ve never seen in anyone. You hear the phrase _stop at nothing_ thrown around, but this man would honestly, truly stop at nothing.”

“The same could be said about you, sir.”

Griffith looked down. For the briefest moment something flashed in his blue eyes, something sharp and uncertain.

“No,” he said slowly, “at one point in my life, I would stop at _him_. I did. For a time, he…” He trailed off. Mule saw in his eyes that he was a million miles away, years away, and he watched him twist a lock of his hair around his index finger over and over until it was wound up near his ear. Then he noticed what he was doing and let it fall. “Well, no matter. That's in the past.” He sat up straight. “Once, he slayed a hundred armoured men, all on his own. And he was just a boy then! I imagine he's immeasurably stronger now, even with his handicaps.”

“He’s _alive_?”

“As far as I know.”

“The way you talked, I thought he was dead.”

“He might as well be. If it were up to me, he would be.” He paused. “The last time I saw him, he had every right to attack me, and I thought he would. But he just… he _stared_ at me, like—like I was the only thing that had ever existed in his eyes.”

Mule couldn't look at him. He picked a clod of dirt off the tip of his boot to busy his hands. He was still looking down when he spoke.

“So he’s still out there somewhere? What’s his name?”

“Mm. I won’t tell you that, but I will tell you that I’ve heard they call him the Black Swordsman now.”

Mule looked up. Griffith had become markedly less wistful already, yanked back to the present. There was a coldness in his eyes that made the heartfelt, uncertain boy who spoke a moment ago seem like a different person. Mule leaned forward.

“I… I can't say I understand. You speak of him so strangely. You say he would be dead if it were up to you, but you also praise him more than I've ever heard you praise anyone, and I just—”

“Never mind that,” Griffith said airily. When Mule looked up at him, he snapped his breath in and held it there; Griffith’s gaze was dead and gone and older than time, looking not at him but at something that was long past, more like the ghosts that danced around him every night than anything of the living realm. “Go get some sleep. And don't think about this any more.”

 

 

—

 

 

Mule saw Guts by the docks. He didn't know it was him at first; his face was swollen from fighting with that loud-mouthed street rat with the red hair and he couldn't see well. The ginger kid was hiding behind Guts and pretending he wasn't, and they seemed to know each other.

The massive sword and dimensionlessly black cloak were Guts’ most recognizable features and Mule instantly recalled his conversation with Griffith. His voice stuck in his throat.

“Do… do they call you the Black Swordsman?”

He took a step closer and Guts slapped a bandaged hand around the hilt of his sword.

“Depends who’s asking.”

His voice was like the low rumble of oceanside wind. Closer, Mule could see the scar on the bridge of his nose. His right eye was closed tight and his left arm was hidden under his cloak. He looked old, dirty and exhausted, but Mule supposed he was handsome, although he couldn't imagine Griffith thinking so.

“It _must_ be you,” Mule breathed, awestruck.

Guts snarled, “Do I know you?”

Mule spoke before he thought better of it.

“You're Griffith’s lover.”

Guts’ face instantly went slack—pure shock with no room for anger. Ishidoro made an indescribable noise. Behind them, there was the wet, splattery noise of someone lobbing a bucket of slop into the street. No one spoke.

“Who are you?” Guts said through his teeth.

“You—you _were_ , I mean, and that's—that’s none of your—”

_“Where is he?”_

Guts screamed so loudly that Sonia, standing next to the little witch girl, covered her ears. Mule scrambled back onto his horse, which reared up in alarm. Sonia stared up at Guts, her face beet red, her eyes wide and interested.

“Goodness,” she said. “Isn't _that_ just unpleasant?”

Guts swung at Mule. He managed to turn and Guts’ sword clipped his leg and his saddle; it broke his armor and blood gushed down his leg. He charged forward but Mule and his horse were already galloping off along the waterfront and when Guts took a step forward to race after him, the witch screamed.

“He's just a boy! Please,” she pleaded. “Let him be. You can't go after him now.”

 

 

—

 

 

Serpico phrased it carefully when he brought it up.

“You knew the White Hawk, didn't you? When you were young.”

They were the only ones awake in their cramped room in the inn, seated on opposite sides of the small table. He swore he felt a wave of sticky black energy roll off Guts’ hunched frame, and he swallowed and pressed on.

“You were that commander Ishidoro was talking about the other day. In the Band of the Hawk.”

Guts bared his teeth. They shone white in the firelit dim of the room.

“Don't overreact,” Serpico hissed, “it's a simple question.”

He didn't speak to Guts unless he had to and he wasn't sure why he was, then. It was none of his business. He supposed a part of him was curious, and a bigger part of him wanted to knock Guts down a peg, even if it was just in his own mind.

“Maybe,” Guts said. Progress.

“I figured. You never talk about your past, but you have a lot to say about mercenary bands.”

“Lots of guys have been mercenaries.”

“Maybe. But be that as it may…”

He trailed off. Guts finally looked right at him and he thought he might lose his nerve. He was an idiot for bringing it up. He had a death wish. He'd be a coward if he backed out now.

“Were you lovers?” he asked, with a feigned air of ease. Guts scowled at him.

“Why the fuck would you ask me that?”

“Hm? Oh, I don't know. The few times someone has brought _him_ up specifically, it's as if spikes cover your whole body. And, I mean… People only talk about him for two things: his ruthlessness and war-making ability, or his otherworldly beauty.”

Guts either rolled his eyes or looked at the ceiling. It was hard to tell with just the left one. Serpico went on.

“I've never met him, obviously, but you hear things. And you like to think you're made of stone, but I know you aren't. So I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to ask, and it more than adds up.”

“One of the kids told you about that guy today, huh?”

“Ishidoro,” Serpico admitted.

“You've got some fucking stones bringing it up. You're not worried I’ll slice you in half for even suggesting it?”

“No.” Serpico glanced at their sleeping companions. “I think you might if it _weren't_ true. But explaining why you massacred me if it _were_ true would complicate things for you, especially if Ishidoro knows.” His eyes laid on Farnese and Casca curled in the bed by the fire. Then he slowly looked back at Guts. “So?”

Guts sighed. He leaned his chair back on two legs and looked Serpico dead in the eye. There was a terrifying jitteriness to his demeanor that suggested he was holding something in, and he ground out, “Don't even have the courtesy to buy a guy a drink before you start sticking your nose into his fucking life.”

“That sounds a lot less amused than it should.”

“Are _you_ laughing?”

Neither spoke for almost a minute; Guts’ boot was braced against one of the table legs and he used it to creak his chair back and forth, back and forth. His lone eye gleamed eerie in the firelight, always so wide, his pupil blown in the dark.

“So you were,” Serpico said flatly. He imagined how Guts might cut him in half—if he'd use one of his smaller knives and take his time, or insist on using his sword and hack up half the room.

Guts finally looked away.

“Does it matter?”

There. 

“I suppose not.” Serpico spoke quickly because Guts’ face was crumpled into thinly veiled anger. He wouldn't apologize, but, “How long did you know him?”

“Don't remember. Why?”

“I’m just curious.”

“Well, don't be, ‘cause it's none of your fucking business.”

Serpico couldn't imagine Guts being intimate with anyone. He had an obvious soft spot for children, but as far as women went, he was less than kind. To say nothing of the way he treated men. He clearly felt affection, but the thought of him experiencing passion or love made Serpico’s hands sweat to even think about; it would be an oppressive, violent love, something like predator and prey. Or predator and predator.

“He had a thing for me,” Guts said, startling Serpico out of his thoughts.

“And what did _you_ have?”

Guts picked something out from under one of his nails with his teeth. He spat on the floor and didn't look up.

“Understood,” Serpico lied, and wondered if Guts had been in love. Men baffled him—the constant posturing, the games they played with themselves and women and even with other men. They pretended to be ten feet tall for so long that they genuinely forgot they weren't. Guts reminded him of Farnese in that way, or at least of the way she used to be.

Guts breathed out hard; not a sigh. He said, apropos of nothing, “We did things to each other that’d make most guys puke.”

“In—in _what_? In disgust, or pain, or—or—”

Guts wagged his metal hand in the air as if to say _yeah, yeah._

“You're posturing,” Serpico said.

“ _What_?”

“You're talking big.”

Guts snorted. “Like I'd give a shit about that.”

_Idiot._

“You think the fact that you've laid with a man is weak, so you're trying to make it tough, or frighten me, or—”

“Hold up. Frighten you?”

“I—”

“What, you think I’m gonna _fuck_ you? To mess with you? Like some dirty old drunk picking on tavern girls?”

Serpico said nothing. Guts hacked up a laugh.

“That's sick. Don't get me wrong, I know I’m a mental case, but how fucking bleak do you have to be to go _there_? Christ.”

“I imagine I'm not your type,” Serpico drawled, but his mouth snapped shut when Guts’ eye flicked up to his and held them. Guts slowly looked him over, unblinking, and Serpico’s heart slid into his throat and beat a nervous staccato there. He knew Guts wasn't serious but even the thought of it made him dizzy with fear; in an undignified hand-to-hand brawl, no swords, Guts would dominate.

“Not with that horrible personality,” Guts said finally, and he was almost, almost smiling. Serpico couldn't tell if he was joking and didn't want to know.

“Right,” he said stiffly. “Well, my mistake.”

It was stifling to be alone with Guts. His flaming rage stood next to a yawning emptiness that he barely tried to hide, and Serpico saw both clearly, and the emptiness mirrored in himself. If he continued to operate under the assumption he had been, that something in the world _made_ Guts the way he was, then it was possible to imagine a time before Guts was the monster that he had come to know. In wobbly pictures, he imagined Guts as an adolescent. Ropey and bright-eyed, a kid too strong for his own good. Getting eyes made at him by Griffith, some beautiful, shining boy, and not knowing what to do with it. Guts experiencing emotion without the pain that ran obviously alongside everything he felt in the present day.

Serpico had pieced together enough to understand that something had happened—that Griffith had done something. He couldn't tell what. But for Guts to hurt so, so badly, it wasn't a far skip to imagine that he and Griffith were in love, or something like it. In Guts’ endlessly miserable life, Serpico figured, it fit perfectly to think that it was someone he loved who caused him so much pain. It had to be complicated. And it was easier to talk about sex than it was love, tenfold. One-hundred fold, for Guts.

Serpico sighed.

“Well, it's only fair—with two people in love, it rarely cuts one way. I’m sure he's finding thoughts of _you_ just as difficult to parse, if that helps at all.”

“Not in the fucking slightest.”

Guts stared into the fire, his brow scrunched. He wasn't looking anywhere that anyone else could see. He didn't object to use of the word _love._ Serpico stood.

“Well. I’m getting some air before bed.”

Guts grunted at him. He donned his cloak and made for the stairs, and just as his head disappeared below the floor as he descended, he swore he heard Guts mutter to himself.

“I can't remember my friends’ faces, but I can't forget his fucking voice. How's that fair?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i have another, longer berserk fic [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11783898)
> 
> [tw](http://www.twitter.com/cleenteath) / [tu](http://www.ronibravo.tumblr.com)


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